Operation Myrmidon

Operation Myrmidon (19 March 1973) was a rescue operation of the United States during the Vietnam War. As Operation Homecoming - the effort to have American POWs returned to America from Vietnamese prisons - was in progress, the USA sent a rescue team to the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi to free several POWs that were still in captivity. The POWs were returned home after a successful fight against NVA troops.

Background
On 27 January 1973, the Paris Peace Accords officially ended the Vietnam War. North Vietnam, the United States, and South Vietnam were at peace as per the terms of the treaty, but the South Vietnamese Army (ARVN) and North Vietnamese Army (NVA) were still fighting each other and the USA had yet to pull its last remaining 50 troops out. Operation Homecoming was a diplomatic effort to return US prisoners-of-war back to America, but in addition to being a repatriation conference, it also had military effects. On 19 March 1973, the CIA dispatched a team of Green Berets to rescue US POWs still interned in the Hanoi Hilton prison in the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi; North Vietnam refused to return US special forces prisoners out of fear that they would return to fighting them alongside the ARVN.

Operation
The Americans assaulted the prison, with an "Eve of Destruction" gun truck blasting down a wall and US troops scattering throughout the prison to rescue the POWs. The North Vietnamese guards responded with gunfire, and the infamous prison became a bloody battleground. Calling in air support from a Hind gunship, the Americans gunned down NVA troops in great amounts and sent missiles flying down towards the prison facilities. At the time that American troops and POWs left the prison, 51 Americans and 75 North Vietnamese troops were killed.

Aftermath
In the aftermath of Operation Myrmidon, the United States continued military operations in support of South Vietnam. The American involvement in Vietnam to rescue prisoners-of-war and missing-in-action soldiers continued into the 1980s in several secret operations, although the "Vietnam War POW/MIA Issue" is still a problem.